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Google is back exploring the Indian semi-urban and rural market with its revamped cheap smartphone programme. In its first attempt in 2014, the internet giant had partnered with Micromax, Karbonn and Lava to roll out the devices under its Android One initiative. Analysts and experts were, however, of the opinion that the initiative not only failed to provide the value proposition for the customer, but the company also lacked proper marketing initiatives.

It is every large format retailer’s wet dream to own brands, also called private labels. These in-house brands not only make a healthy contribution to the bottomline, they also help with service unmet market needs and plan inventories. The vagaries of the market are no different for Amazon.

As another festival season gets over, Flipkart could be running out of time to stay ahead of the race as another round of deep discounting may have hurt the e-tailer more than Amazon, which has access to unlimited resources at its command unlike its cross-country rival.

Imagine the struggle a large technology company faces in India. You want to cater to the millions of mom and pop stores in the country, but they are happy offline. As companies scramble for ways to bridge the gap, Microsoft may have found something – to get people onto the information highway, it’s hitting the highway itself.

Infosys Ltd co-founder Narayana Murthy publicly criticised the company’s board again, just as directors try to recruit a chief executive officer to replace one who resigned out of frustration with such clashes.

American online payments firm PayPal is looking at a bigger payoff from its bets in India. The company, which set up a startup incubator in Chennai in 2013, has now decided to start taking equity in the firms that join its programme, which was free till now. So far it has churned out 10 companies in four batches.

Apple has discontinued what has often been called the “best iPhone model” — iPhone 7 256GB. In fact, reports suggest that Apple might have stopped selling this variant of the iPhone 7 on the same day as the iPhone 8 was launched – September 12. The move is hardly surprising, and Apple is keen to push sales of its newest offering that has had a slow uptick thus far. Both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus have a 256GB variant, but ever since they launched, it is the iPhone 7 that has benefited most.

Ahead of Infosys’ second-quarter earnings announcement, analysts expect the outcome of the board meeting to reflect on long-term stability in the business along with short-term confidence-building measures like a date for share buyback and employees’ salary hike.

A sense of excitement, of jumping into something green or greener, pervades right through IBM India offices today. The organisation is in the midst of transforming itself to focus on the Indian market. It is metamorphosing with the aim to grow the more profitable India business, even as globally IBM has reported 21 quarters of declining revenues.

With less than two years to go for the next general election, the government’s report card has become too unpleasant with failures at multiple levels. The economic situation is so bad that State Bank of India in a recent report pointed out that slowdown that is now experienced is real and not technical. Many economists have called for more public spending to arrest the slide. Clearly, the biggest blot on the government as of now is the miserable failure in keeping the promise to create millions of jobs.

Bidding for smart city projects, working with startups and launching a slew of products for an increasingly digital world are among the things that Dell EMC is planning , as it completes one year of the merger between Dell Inc. and EMC Corp.

For Indian e-commerce firms, already struggling to shrug off the ill-effects of demonetisation and goods and services tax, this festival season is likely to be crucial. What has made the situation all the more tricky is the entrance of a new deep-pocketed player, Paytm Mall.

Apple’s new iPhones will be available in India at the same time as in the US and other major markets. Yet, Apple seems to have ignored India in some other areas, which could indicate its market priorities. Before launching the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and the X, Apple CEO Tim Cook showcased two of the company’s important products — the Apple Watch and the Apple TV 4K. While the company won’t be launching the cellular version of the Apple Watch in India, the Apple TV 4K is also expected to be launched in the country only by next year.

Earlier this week I accidentally came across a video from a multinational that makes enterprise software aimed to help organizations better manage operations and customer relations. This video features the company’s top honcho who talks at length about how their company is establishing trust with customers and employees using ’empathy’. To set the context for the commentary below, I have been tracking this company over the past decade and have a solid understanding of their technology, operations, people, and culture.

As an industry analyst, I have the privilege of attending global industry events and exchanging ideas with some of the brightest executives from the world of technology. While I may not always agree with these executives and their employers’ perspectives, the discussion is almost always intellectually stimulating.

That whoosh you hear is of India’s 1.3 billion people speeding along into the decidedly digital age of the future. And it shows in the 3 billion transactions about to be logged by IndiaStack, the open source initiative to help businesses develop a unified software platform, on the back of the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and last year’s demonetisation drive.

Indian IT firms, especially in the mid-tier segment, have seen a rise of private equity firms placing stakes on them. While faster technology at mid-size IT services companies have attracted PE firms such as Blackstone, Carlyle, ChrysCap, Bain Capital, The Baring Asia and others to invest in the sector; PE-backed companies have seen faster growth at a time when their large listed peers slowed down due to uncertain market.

Vodafone has begun an exercise to extend its outsourcing contract with IBM to cover Idea Cellular as well, besides kicking off work to streamline and standardise all its own IT processes ahead of the proposed $23-billion merger between the phone companies.

What happened with Cyrus Mystry in Tata seems to have happened with Vishal Sikka in Infosys. The letter sent by founders to Infosys board raising governance concerns has given rise to nagging suspicion that remote controlling of a company by former promoters may be an emerging trend in Indian corporate that are restructuring and reinventing themselves to come to terms with the new business realities.

Corporate tussles have rarely been as public as the one between Infosys founder and former CEO N.R. Naray­ana Murthy and MD and CEO Vishal Sikka. That wrangle, which led to the latter’s resignation, has brought to focus many issues at the company.

Uber has got a new chief in Dara Khosrowshahi, the former Chief Executive Officer of travel company, Expedia. From the very public and controversy-ridden Travis Kalanick, founder and former CEO to the relatively less known Khosrowshahi, Uber is purring itself to a new lane. At least that’s what the choice of the CEO points out to.

As Abidali Neemuchwala completes six quarters as the chief executive of India’s third largest IT services firm, he seems to have figured out a way to break the jinx of sluggish growth that the company has seen for years.

Allegations and counter-allegations have been flowing thick and fast since Vishal Sikka resigned as managing director and CEO of IT bellwether Infosys. Crises at Infosys opens up the Pandora box which has led head hunters analyse the key takeaways.

The Right to Privacy is now a fundamental right. A nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court pronounced this verdict on Thursday morning. It was a unanimous decision with all the nine judges in favour of the Right to Privacy. The constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar ruled that “right to privacy is an intrinsic part of Right to Life and Personal Liberty under Article 21 and entire Part III of the Constitution.”

Albeit the judgement by the 9 judge bench on August 24, 2017, is a landmark judgement, it’s a little too early to celebrate. Despite the tons of chatter on this being a blow to UIDAI, we just cannot be sure yet. Here are a few points to consider.

We at Greyhound believe the change to digital is first personal and then professional. Catch Vilakshan Jakhu, CEO, Will InfoTech in an exclusive conversation with Anshoo Nandwaani, Principal Analyst, Co-Founder & CHRO, Greyhound on our latest Greyhound TV series, Dealing With Digital, a Greyhound Studios production.

A company is hit by ransomware every 40 seconds somewhere in the world, thanks to the rise of ransomware-as-a-service model that is available ‘on demand’ to criminal gangs who increasingly target businesses. To date, 2017 has seen this trend play out in full force, with high-profile attacks such as Petya and WannaCry.

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